One of the top ranked players of his recruiting class, the Los Angeles-based Isaac Hamilton committed to UTEP to play for Tim Floyd last November. Now, Hamilton and his family have decided he doesn't want to leave California and asked Floyd for a release from his letter of intent.

Floyd told ESPN Monday he wasn't going to release Hamilton from his commitment to UTEP and claims there has been tampering.

Hamilton wanted to stay closer to home, preferably at a Los Angeles based school like USC or UCLA, because of his ailing grandmother.

"Our reasons for opting out are for (my wife) Karen's mom to see him play since she's dealing with sickness (a heart condition)," Greg Hamilton, Issac's father, told ESPN. "She watched him play in high school but wanted to watch him in college."

Greg emailed a letter to UTEP administration Monday asking for his son's release. The Hamilton family has known Floyd for a few decades, as Greg's younger brother, Kevin, played for Floyd and the late Don Haskins at UTEP in the 1980s.

If Floyd does not release him in the long run, Hamilton can still go to school in the Los Angeles area. If he doesn't win an appeal to get out of his letter of intent and is not released, Hamilton would have to pay for his own scholarship next year.

One of the claims the Hamiltons are making is their claim Floyd "applied for the USC job" earlier this year.

Floyd said he never applied for the USC job, though. In fact, he said USC athletic director Pat Haden called him about the opening, but that was the extent of it.

Floyd's claims of tampering stem from two Pac-12 coaches and a WCC coach calling him saying Hamilton was going to get out of his letter of intent. On June 4, Floyd got a text from the Hamiltons saying Issac was not going to be at the first summer session and that Issac wanted to work out with his brother, Jordan, who currently plays for the Denver Nuggets. Jordan and Issac's workout was at USC.

Floyd said he called new USC head coach Andy Enfield, to which Enfield said he wasn't talking to Hamilton and that the Trojans were "out of that. Floyd told him that damage had already been done, though.

ESPN said a text to Enfield was not returned Monday.

The Miners went 18-14 last season. They play in the Battle 4 Atlantis, where Floyd said he thinks the Miners will open against USC, but the brackets won't be released until later this week. Kansas and Villanova are also participating in the event.

"I'm sorry his grandmother is having health problems," Floyd told ESPN. "But what I'm doing I'm doing for UTEP and for everyone else. The NLI is in place so you can field a team. Young people don't have to sign a national letter of intent. You can sign a scholarship paper. The policy is in place to protect the institutions after they've spent all this money in recruiting and built their schedule around and turned down other players."